The Mental Game of Poker: Proven Strategies For Improving Tilt Control, Confidence, Motivation, Coping with Variance, and More (The Mental Game of Poker Series Book 1) eBook : Tendler, Jared, Carter, Barry: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

I have recently been working on my game across several parameters. Although I am strong mathematically, I had always suspected that I was a mental fish (to use a term coined by the author). This book confirmed that I did indeed have some mental fish tendencies, but laid out solid mental strategies to overcome them.For me, a key concept contained in the book which has enabled me to nip tilt in the bud is an appreciation of unconscious competence (what you are both good or bad at doing with no conscious thought) and how tilt short-circuits the brain to it, circumventing logic -- if you have weaknesses in your game, tilt is therefore a winrate killer. By deploying Tendler's short-term strategy of 'injecting logic' on several occasions, I have been able to save myself from several negative EV stack offs. Tendler does offer a long-term solution (he terms it resolution), and I look forward to developing things along these lines -- with Tendler's long-run solution, tilt has zero impact on your winrate -- yes, you heard that right!I guesstimate that this book has already saved me several stacks worth of losses due to poor decision-making, within days of reading it. In economics parlance, minimising losses is the same as maximising profits, so I guess that I have already earned the price of the book back many times.

I stumped up a couple of weeks ago and bought a copy from Amazon. I have suspected that there had been something wrong with my game but couldn't put my finger on it. Well just wanted to say thanks to Barry and Jared for virtually ripping me to pieces. I have read almost every poker book worth reading and in my mind if this book doesn't end up a classic then it has purely got to be because people just don't recognise the importance of it but if they don't then as a poker player then I am not complaining.The only people who couldn't possibly recognise this book as a great book are those that are either not aware of how important the mental game is now in poker or those that are not in need of Jared's help......however at some stage of their career they will be because everybody does. To say that this is the best tenner I have ever spent on a poker book is a massive understatement.I was struggling to figure out why my game had progressed so much technically but yet my results were stagnating over the past six months. I had put it down to too much poker and just simple burnout and spending too much time at home and not enough time outside doing normal things. The "inchworm" principle was fantastic and highlighted what I had been doing wrong with my education. I could go on all night quoting areas of the book which highlighted flaws but I came to the conclusion that I was mental "fish" (well actually Jared told me that I was).I don't know if I had just gotten too soft and maybe too much poker didn't help. I was outplaying tables and then spewing back the profits repeatedly time after time.....I even thought at one stage that I had masochistic tendencies. I have highlighted all of the pertinent points that concern me personally in the book and now study the book every single day. I have taken a few weeks off to get my head straight and become more familiar with what was said. Looking forward to the second book by the way, cannot believe that I left it so long but I have always thought that I could figure out my own problems as I always have done but I guess that no man is an island......anyway congrats on a great book and many thanks for giving me plenty of food for thought.

The Mental Game of Poker does not only help you as a poker player, but also in your everyday life. Therefore, it is not only directed to avoiding tilt but helping you to improve your overall mental status. What is more, I have really found it useful in trading aswell, because a lot of these factors are quite similar, especially when running bad.It is written in really good language and is easily understandable. What I really found interesting and helpful, are the three foundational theories, which are MUST if you want to improve your game and mental focus.All in all, what I really liked about this book, is that it helped me in everyday life as much as in poker - to gain confidence & motivation. Therefore, this is a book I recommend to everyone who is starting to take poker more seriously, because there is a thing called "variance", which will really start to depress you when you are playing 1000 hands online a day. I recommend to read it before, so you have heads up, what might happen to you while playing and therefore be ready and confident about it.

I'm only four chapters in and already this book is going to have a massive impact on my game, there are some real valuable nuggets of information in it and the profile writing exercise has highlighted just how many leaks I have in my mental game.I haven't got to the part with the solutions yet but I expect them to be well presented, logical, lucid and well structured as the rest of the book has been so far.The author goes over concepts in minute detail, which I personally enjoy as a coaching style, nothing is presumed to be already understood, he is very thorough. My only slight gripe is the American style of writing/speech where the author use an adjective when he should use an adverb, but that is really irrelevant.Will this book do what it was designed to do and improve my poker game, and help me make more money? Without a doubt it will.Also the concepts and exercises in this book could translate well to other games and sports, and life in general.I highly recommend it, especially for beginning players, as I am.